


The Sith in the High Castle

by Kalendeer



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Imperials being imperials, Makeb, Racism, Siths being Siths, Ziost
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-13 15:16:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10516350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalendeer/pseuds/Kalendeer
Summary: Captain Malavai Quinn fails to kill Darth Prava - and finds himself at loss when the Sith Lord disembarks him instead of landing the killing blow.Lord Cytharat is Darth Malgus' apprentice and his deputy in Dromund Kass - and finds himself in a very precarious situation when his master proclaims his new empire.Set mostly after Ziost and Makeb, the story of Malavai Quinn and Lord Cytharat as they struggle to find their place in a crumbling empire.





	1. Prologue : Weak [Malavai Quinn]

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome for this new ride of a story! While there is a slight AU (very slight, since honestly Quinn is mostly useless to the story after the Quinncident), I would rather consider this a continuation story for the Sith Warrior plot-line. The SW himself will a supporting character for our two main guys. 
> 
> I hope you will enjoy this story!

He woke to the sound of a beeping engine and his rasping breath.

His brain took his time putting all the pieces together. His serial number first. His deeply ingrained training made it so: if he was a prisoner, then his serial number was the only piece of information he shouldgive. Zero-eight, nine-nine, twenty-seven, zero-one-three-two-two. Then his name and rank. 08-99-27-01322, Malavai Quinn, Captain of the Imperial Army.

Remembering why he was lying in a medical bay took longer. He felt very light and his throat didn’t hurt at all despite the disturbing sounds that erupted from his trachea. His mind was slow, too slow. Either drugged or damaged somehow by the encounter.

The encounter.

The beeping machine remained steady. There was probably too much drug in his system for him to panic.

_Have I won?_

That, or…

Malavai blinked. For how long had he been starring at the ceiling? How long had his passivity lasted, when he could have been assessing his situation? The door slid open with an airy sound. Too late. It was too late to plot now.

 _Jaesa_.

She had survived then.

He opened his mouth to ask: what of Darth Prava? Why wasn’t the Sith lord here?

“Prava is alive,” Jaesa said, as if she had been able to read his mind. Perhaps she was. Malavai had never been quite sure of what she was capable of. “Alive and well.”

_How far was I from killing him?_

His throat rasped.

“Why?” he asked instead. Shorter. He didn’t know if he could manage a full sentence.

“Why is he alive? Or why are _you_ still alive?”

Both. He nodded.

“Did you really think you could kill him?” She asked. He was a little vexed by her astonishment. He had planned and planned well. For all his flaws, Malavai knew he was _good_. He had watched Prava, all the vids he could find, always from afar, he had been in contact, seen him train, had _known_ everything he had to know to beat him. He had been so confident, so sure. The odds were in his favor! Overwhelmingly so! “I can’t believe this. Don’t you feel how _powerful_ he is? He could have killed you instantly. You are lucky, Quinn, that Prava is a better man than you are.”

The laugh was painful.

“Better?” Quinn choked. “Traitor.”

If only he could _talk_. If only he could tell her that Prava was nothing but a massive space wreck! He was powerful, yes, and his power got to his brain, turned everything to traitorous pride. Darth Prava was a child playing with live pawns. Quinn had seen him destroy loyal imperials and spare republican soldiers on a whim. Had seen him let Jedis walk free from his grasp, heard him pledge friendship to that alien scum of a jedi that was Master Somminick Timms. Had seen him betray Lord Baras by letting the traitor Nomen Karr go back to the jedi order. Had seen him bend his neck to the will of a twi’lek slave.

Dark Prava wasn’t a good man. He wasn’t even a loyal one – and for Malavai Quinn, this last trait was the most damning one.

When he thought about it, it had all started with Jaesa… or Vette, perhaps? But Quinn remembered Darth Prava, back in Balmorra, still happy to cut down anything that smelled like a Jedi, still happy to hunt them down and destroy them for sport. In Nar Shaddaa, his voice had been full of mirth and aggression when he faced Lord Rathari. Only after Tatooine had Prava started to become something that a Sith wasn’t supposed to be. It had been subtle at first, little hints that could be mistaken with cunning and ruse, until it became clear that it _wasn’t_.

Everyone assumed that Darth Prava had turned Jaesa Willsaam to the Empire. If only they knew the truth, if only they could see how she was poisoning her master…

“I can’t believe… he _spared_ you. You betrayed him, tried to murder him, he spared you, and you have nothing good to say? No forgiveness to ask, no thanks?”

“… weak,” Malavai croaked. Jaesa had made him weak.

“It takes strength to show compassion, Malavai.” He hated how his name sounded on her tongue. “I wish you could understand that.”

_Do not pity me._

“Jedi,” he hissed. She was still a jedi. She was poison, working to unravel what was left of the empire, what was left of the Sith.

She shook her head, didn’t answer. Of course she wouldn’t. It would take so little for her to fall. A bug in the room. Someone to overhear. No, she would never admit to being still devoted to the Light, and she would never admit that Prava was turning from the Dark, even if it was true.

“I knew… I hoped we could talk, but I was under no illusion that you would listen. I wanted you to know that the Fury will leave without you. Dark Prava provided a letter explaining everything. How you were hurt while trying to protect him against treachery. You are to report to the Vaiken Station as soon as possible to get a new posting.”

“Weak,” he repeated. He would not thank her. No Sith would behave like this. No Sith would lie and let a traitor go with a letter of recommendation. This was the final proof. He had been right. Baras had been right. Traitors, all of them.

She sighed.

“I will tell Prava you thanked him, as you should.”

“No.”

She left. She left and didn’t look back.

He would not thank him. Not the traitor.

 _No_.


	2. Prologue: The Initiate [Cytharat]

Vikesh came out last from the tomb. That, at least, could be counted as a small victory: they were eight initiates on this mission; when Vikesh was declared as “late” by the supervisor, only six of them had made it back to his office.

“Looks like the weakling made it alive.”

Harkun’s voice hit the young man harder than all his wounds. A triple cut itched with infection on his left arm. He was trying (and failing) to hide a slight limp from a bad fall, and his right cheek-bone had taken a sickly brown-and-green hue over the dull red of his skin. But Vikesh was alive, his tasks completed despite his struggles; he knew by then that he would never earn a single word of approval from the overseer, but somehow he felt the sting still.

He bowed in silence and presented his piece of rock to Harkun, felt the sculpture fragment fly from his hands. The rock hit the desk and was promptly forgotten amidst five other pieces.

Vikesh had been there long enough to know their trials were pointless, and this damn rock nothing more than an excuse to kill them.

“The next part of your training will begin now. Your group has been chosen to provide a new acolyte to Darth Malgus. This is an honor that none of you –“ Vikesh felt Harkun's gaze burn on his ruined face, “ – deserves yet. You will now have access to the training room. You will bleed, you will labor and you will learn until you gather at least a portion of the talent required to be in the Excellency’s presence.”

A ripple of excitement exploded through the Force. The training room was a mile stone for the initiates, an indication that their trials were nearing the end. The air charged with statics, hard muscles rolled under tough skin. For the sake of Darth Malgus, each of the five initiates would sweat and kill until all life left their bodies.

And then there was Vikesh.

“As punishment for your lateness, weakling, you shall be banned from the training rooms until the next trial.”

He knew he wouldn’t make it. Each trial was a duel between him and death. The very fact that Harkun showed so much contempt toward him was proof of his lack of any particular talent: Harkun was well known for his preferences toward proper imperials – that is, humans and pure-blood sith. Vikesh came from a good line of pure-blood, a line that had provided sith lords in the past.

He was a disappointment, and Harkun had quickly given up on him.

It wasn’t that Vikesh was _bad_. He just wasn’t _good_ , and that made all the difference. He had been trained from birth for this, yet many a slave with less education than him impressed him with their strength, their passion, the sheer magnitude of their feelings. They rumbled like thunder; no matter how hard he tried, his anger was short lived, his emotions dull and cold. Cruelty was mere posturing for him. He talked in Harkun’s fashion, he held his shoulders like the Overseer, but the brusqueness of his voice was false.

Any other initiate would have screamed and protested, and so he did.

“But –“

“You would dare defy me, initiate?”

He _should_.

He hung his head instead.

“No,” he breathed, the sound drowned by the snickers of his competitors.

He was, as always, left behind when Harkun dismissed them. The remaining competitors were the strongest ones, dire enemies united in their disdain for the ugly duckling of the company.

“I bet Vikesh will die next time,” one of them snickered. He was an alien, a rattataki with a half-burnt face covered with tattoos. That Harkun favored him over Vikesh was the proof of his own failings.

“C’me on, the weakling’s made it s’far.” That one was a proper imperial with a thick accent from the most backward swamps of Ziost. “I bet he will somehow manage to come back from the next trial. Minus a limb or two, perhaps?”

He limped past them. Vikesh wasn’t going to defy them. He was used to mockery now, in a way that reminded him of the former slaves. They all had a bizarre strength in them, that talent to just look straight through you when you insulted them, as if their life of suffering had inured them completely to disdain and scorn.

They were just waiting for an opening; one he would never provide.

 _I will live_ , he promised himself. Whatever happens, _I will live._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I chose the name Vikesh for Cytharat because Dark Prava, who is also a pure-blood sith, goes by the name of Surya. I live for linguistic consistency for my character so all pure-blood are born with hindi names. Most of them get another name later, when they ascend as sith.
> 
> As for Cytharat copying Harkun's behavior: in french, Cytharat happens to be dubbed with Harkun's voice, and it became kind of a joke because my friend was playing Inquisitor... so everytime Cytharat showed up on screen, she would bark "SLAVE!". 
> 
> I have decided to make Cytharat quite young before Makeb, so expect a lot of growing up for him in the next chapters!


	3. Chapter 1: Concussion [Malavai Quinn]

Malavai Quinn contemplated his first message to Darth Baras. The prospect wasn’t exactly entrancing, but duty commanded that he risks the man’s wrath and warns him of his failure. Darth Prava was still coming to Corellia.

He asked for a holocommunicator. The request was denied – he wasn’t, apparently, well enough to work, and his former sith master had insisted that his _precious_ Captain should get his rest.

_Fuck you, Prava._

Quinn frowned upon swearing.

After six days in isolation, deprived from datapad and holocommunicator and anything that could allow him to report, he was past frowning upon anything. He had tried to hijack one of the medical droid and nearly managed to until a great coughing fit sent him down, trembling and clenching his chest, only to be retrieved by _another_ medical unit and put back to bed.

The seventh day, he felt the starship shudder; a familiar sensation, that of a destroyer docking something far bigger. A station. Vaiken? He made the calculation in his head. It was possible, though not likely, unless… unless more than seven days had gone by since the showdown with Prava.

_How long was I unconscious?_

How long had Jaesa remained by his side, scanning him? Did she know more that she let on?

 

***

 

The Spatiodock Vaiken hadn’t changed. Yet, Quinn felt a little lost there. He knew the station rather well. He was unsettled, yes, but the slightly curved hallways and echoing ceilings weren’t at fault.

His situation wasn’t unlike his post-Druckenwell period. His lack of posting meant he didn’t truly fit at the Spatiodock; he was a man in transit, a wanderer with no purpose to guide his steps. He needed to talk to Baras. He dreaded talking to Baras. The memory of Hoth’s commander struggling for breath, choked by hands half a galaxy away made him shiver. If Baras could get away with murdering the commander of a whole planet for no other reason than displeasure, then what was stopping him from…

For one split second, Quinn considered running away.

The moment didn’t last.

He felt the stiff fabric of the uniform on his back, the hard collar against his neck. He saw a guard straighten his back when his gaze ran over him. The moment he considered to let that go – the army, the power, his life, he couldn’t even imagine himself without this. Without these attributes he owed to Baras. If he ran now, he would have nothing left to live for anyway.

His palms were sweaty when he typed Baras’ office number. They got sweatier when he was put on hold. His belly grumbled. How long waiting? His nerves disturbed his sense of time. Ten minutes, perhaps, or one hour? His throat ached; he denied the pain. It must be psychosomatic.

At least the holocom beeped. Quinn’s heart skipped a beat.

“You are to report to Darth Baras’s quarters in Korriban,” a young woman intoned.

The communication switched off before Quinn could utter a single word.

What about his report? What about the intel he may have on Prava? Korriban was three days away, and Darth Baras needed to know _now_.

Unless he already did.

Prava was hardly stealthy. Just how many pureblood sith lord roamed this galaxy with a green lightsaber of all things? Baras wasn’t interested in Quinn’s report because it wasn’t _needed_. Nine days were more than enough for him to pick up that Prava had arrived on Corellia and trashed half the place with the subtlety of a rancor. The only reason Baras would want him there, then, would be to ensure that Quinn would pay for his failure. The captain couldn’t say he was surprised. Had not Baras eliminated better agents than he, and for less a crime?

The walls of the small holo-room closed on him. He was dead then. His only chance (a temporary solution at best) was to flee the Empire altogether, an option he couldn’t bring himself to consider.

His father had warned him, back in the days: sith games are a trap; the power they bring will blind you to the ultimate fall. Rymar Quinn had died a colonel. Honored and not old enough to be blown to pieces in a space battle. A fine officer whose line would end with his ambitious son.

Quinn wiped his face with the back of his glove. His brow was damp, his cheeks wet with… sweat, that must be sweat. He’d faced death before. He could walk there with whatever dignity he had left.

 

***

When he woke up on a hard, cold metallic floor, Malavai Quinn wondered when things had gone bad.

His head pounded like an army of droid was marching inside his skull. He rolled on his back and fought the urge to gag.

_Where am I?_

He brought his hand to his right temple, intending to massage his brow to dilute the headache, only to find a bump the size of his eye on his forehead. The skin was hot, his temple covered with something friable and brown. Blood. He had a head injury. That should account for the black-out and the loss of consciousness. He turned his head slowly to assess his options.

They didn’t go very far.

He was in a cage that was just big enough to let him lie down. The world spun every time he tried to raise his head; of course, his blaster and the vibroblame hidden inside his left boot had been taken away. With a shock, he discovered his rank insignia had been torn from his jacket, leaving a few lose strands where it used to be.

Quinn heard the jailer before he saw him. His boots squeaked on the concrete floor. Not that his face was an improvement, with its red nose and blotched skin that spoke of abuses.

“Where am I?” Quinn asked, his voice carrying the remembrance of command. He was still an officer. The authority was in his bones now, in his flesh, and he could not easily part from it.

The jailer did not approve. His face constricted, fat lips curling into a smirk.

“Shut that traitor’s mouth, scum!” He went for the truncheon at his belt. The weapon sizzled with electricity right before it collided with the bars. The shock went right to Quinn’s head (or did he smash it on the ground when the power racked his body?), and when his eyes opened again he was alone.

He remained still, breathing hard, trying to keep his panic down. He wasn’t dead. There was still hope. Was he on Korriban? He could remember leaving Vaiken. Just how extensive were his wounds, for him to forget several days, if not weeks?

“Hey, that’s my cage!”

Quinn opened his eyes, fought the dizziness. He had been asleep, or had fainted; he couldn’t remember. He managed to sit with slow, deliberate movements.

Of course, if there was one person in the galaxy set to find him, it had to be Prava’s alien slave.

She behaved like she owned the place. The jailer cowered away from her and her lekku curled in a manner Quinn associated with excitement.

“Your cage?” he articulated slowly. His head felt too heavy and there was an itch behind his neck that he couldn’t place.

“Ha, yes, back when I was a prisoner on Korriban, you know? Before I met our Darth.”

He was on Korriban, then, and Vette was there, so that meant… that meant Baras was dead. The pieces clicked in Quinn’s brain. Vette was on Korriban, and she behaved like she had nothing to fear. Prava must have won. Quinn absently got his hand up to scratch his neck. His fingers never reached the skin, bumped instead on something cold…

“What the…” He froze. No. No, that couldn’t be, they couldn’t have lowered him to that extremity… he _clawed_ , clawed at the device even as Vette shouted _not to touch_ – the shock went right to his spine, right to his brain, right to his vocal cord, erupted with a scream that left him panting long after the shock collar had stopped punishing him.

“Keep your hands _down_!” Vette ordered. She was touching his neck – no, no no, he couldn’t have gone that low… “ _Quinn_. Stop. The more you fight, the more it will hurt, and it’s on the max setting right now. Let me…”

“Get away from me,” he wheezed. A slave collar. They had put a slave collar on him, an officer of the imperial army, and now they wanted to let an alien slave help him! “Don’t touch me!”

“Fine!” The twi’lek stepped away. “Why is the setting that high? He can’t even stand, this is ridiculous!”

The jailer answer with bad grace – and he wasn’t graceful to begin with.

“He _misbehaved_.”

“Great. Now, why don’t you go get something for you fat ass in the kitchens?”

The man fumed and for one second Quinn thought he was going to murder her, until he relented and left. 

“Congratulation to you,” Quinn intoned. He wouldn’t give her the opportunity to restart the conversation and set the pace. “I suppose Prava got Darth Baras’s seat in the council?”

“Well, no, and you know he’s not interested in this kind of things.”

 _Idiot_.

“I guess I was arrested as a traitor.”

“More or less.” She scratched her headdress, muttered something about sand getting everywhere. “You were arrested, yes. Then Pierce got to you and hit you on the head with the butt of his rifle.”

“I am not surprised.” The man was a brute. “Why am I still alive?”

“You are _still_ under Darth Prava’s protection. He sent me to pick you up.” Her yellow face twisted into a “don’t do anything foolish” expression. As if he was the foolish one; he wasn’t the one who tried to break into sith lord’s tombs on a daily basis. “Please, Quinn. I am not trying to hurt you.”

“Your pity is the last thing I want, slave.”

“Really?” She sounded annoyed. “After all we lived together, _slave_ is all you have to say?”

“From the first day, you were a blotch on Prava’s record. The day he disgraced himself with you is the day my loyalty to Baras became unshakable.”

“Okay, now I feel a lot better about what is probably going to happen to you. I was planning on helping you to your feet, but I guess you’d rather crawl on the floor.”

Quinn didn’t crawl, though his gait was hardly graceful. The world spun every time he moved too fast; his muscles cramped, either from his imprisonment, the effects of the electrocutions or both. He never dared raise his eyes from the ground. He was in Korriban; his steps echoed on the sacred ground of the Empire. Nonetheless he was there as a traitor, as a slave, as nothing more than the dirt under the foot of an initiate. He was unworthy. Worse, he was unworthy and still in his uniform. His failure would taint the whole army in the eyes of the force users assembled there.

Vette led him to a small room, empty but for a table and two chairs, very obviously intended interrogation. Quinn didn’t look at her as she left. A part of him wanted to find sympathy in her eyes. His pride wouldn’t let him indulge himself. He didn’t want to be saved.

He knew instantly when Darth Prava entered. The Pure-Blood was a force of nature, raw power radiating from him in pulses that even a Force blind could perceive. At first, Malavai Quinn had been blinded by such strength, the way it crawled on his skin when Prava was near. He had enjoyed the feats, the victories against the odds, drunk the power and the ozone smell. It was easy to forget Prava had flaws, deep chasms that clawed for light and softness, and mostly importantly: a kind of immaturity that made him unstable, ever changing and impossible to trust. After sometimes it had occurred to Quinn that Prava was only twenty one, a _child_ , really, unable to channel his raw power for the sake of anything else than his whims.

The sith lord was dressed in his usual red-and-black, almost jediesque clothes. The simple folds of the clothes, the red tinted leather was almost too dull for a sith of his caliber; he wore his hair long, unbound, the deep red crowning his naked head. Prava never hid his straight nose or high cheekbones, nor for helmets, nor for masks. His skin was the color of Korriban’s ground; the protrusions on his chin had grown since their first meeting on Balmorra.

Quinn fought the impulse to stand at attention. Prava wasn’t his lord, not anymore. You don’t bow to a man you tried to kill.

The sith circled him. The strategy was basic and most usual. Prava was used to power, to being the predator in the room. He behaved like a nexu cat. Quinn half expected him to show his teeth.

Prava stopped behind him. Quinn shivered when the tip of his nails ran against the nape of his neck.

“What do you want, Malavai?”

Something twisted in Quinn’s guts. Prava often taunted him for his stiffness, but he had never called him by his given name. He was ill at ease with the change.

“I fear I am in no position to want.”

He bit the “my lord” on his tongue. Prava wasn’t his lord. Prava was never his lord.

“What do you want, Malavai?” he repeated, his fingers tracing lightly the tip of Quinn’s ear. “Do you want me to torture you?” The knuckles fell to his cheek, returned to the collar. “Do you want me to humiliate you? Strangle you?”

Hot breath brushed Quinn’s temples. He could see nothing and dared not turn, not even when Prava’s hand traveled from his shoulder to his chest, stopping right where his heart was beating.

“I could hold your heart.” His voice whispered deep into him, insinuating coldness; Prava’s face felt hot, inches away from Quinn’s ear. Hot and cold. Quinn’s skin was raw with goosebumps.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong, like… oil, coating his body, coating his lungs, ice and fire, a smell in the air and a sour taste on his tongue.

“I will not kill you. Killing you would be easy, Malavai. I will put you on a leash. You will follow me everywhere, collared and humbled. I will make you lick my boot clean and scrub the floor with that beloved uniform of yours. I will give you to the first Moff with depraved desires I will want at my side. You will be a very good pet to atone for your _repeated_ betrayals.”

 Prava’s hand travelled up, sliding on his neck, forcing his head back – forcing Quinn’s blues eyes to meet Prava’s cold greyish one.

 _They used to be yellow_.

They were grey, but fear dripped from them, and Quinn couldn’t close his eyes, couldn’t do anything to stop that; couldn’t stop the fear as it dug into his brain, awakening the primal instincts to flee. He twitched against Prava’s hand. The fingers closed, not hard enough to bruise, not hard enough _yet_.

“Is that what you want, Malavai? For me to use you as I would use a slave? I wonder… if decency is weakness for you, then perhaps I should enslave you to please you,” the sith purred. _And you shall enjoy this, shan’t you?_ “You are, after all, nothing but a lowly, force-blind imperial. I am your better, your _owner_. I am _sith_ ,” the word brushed on Quinn’s face like a cold feather. “I am free to do whatever I want. I am free to tear your limbs from your body, to crack your fingers and lay open your chest. I am free to use and abuse you.”

 _No_. He tried to break away, but Prava was faster. Quinn hit the table with an explosive gasp. The world spun and he felt bile rising up his throat. No matter how desperately he fought, how hard he trashed, he remained pined like an insect, waiting to be pierced to death by these grey eyes.

“You will answer when I talk to you, _slave_!” Prava hand’s dug into his shoulder. Force, if only the room could stay still for a minute… “Is that what you want?”

“No…”

“I can’t hear you, traitor!”

“No!”

“Do you want me to hurt you?”

“No!”

“Do you want to grovel at my feet? Do you want to beg me for your life?”

“No, I don’t… I don’t…”

“Then what are you doing on Korriban?” Prava shouted. His closed fist hit the table like a hammer, the Dark Side breaking the black surface rather than physical strength. “If you don’t want to die, if you don’t want to be a slave or to be tortured, why did you come? Did you truly think that Baras would reward you? He would have flayed you and used your skin as a carpet!”

“What… what else?” Quinn sobbed. “What else could have I done?”

“You could have ran away! Defected to the Republic! You could have become a pirate for all I care!”

“He would have found me.” He was never free to choose. From Balmorra to this very moment, he had never been free. He could stand again, he could sit or do anything – Prava wasn’t looming over him anymore, seemed, in fact, rather put off by the sight of his tears. Uncomfortable. “He would have found me anywhere. Wherever I’d gone, it wouldn’t be a life worth living.”

Silence stretched between them, thick and awkward. Quinn forced himself to sit, to gather whatever dignity he had left. If Prava wanted to kill him now, at least he would do so standing. He refused to blink when the sith advanced on him, when his hands went for his throat, when…

… when they went to the collar and deactivated the device.

“You have been reassigned,” Prava informed him, his tone cold and falsely dull, for the Force still cracked around him. “I am sending you to Ziost. You will spend the rest of your career counting crates and whatever they do in the logistic department. You shall never leave this planet, and should you cross my path again I will toss you out of the airlock.”

Prava dug in his pocket and something hard was pushed into Quinn’s hand. Then the sith turned on his heels and left.

Quinn opened his fingers. He stood and – Force, he could barely stand. He made it to the nearest wall and slid back on the floor, eyes riveted to his rank insignia. Then he hear someone (himself?) cackle, a mad, hysterical laugh broken with sobs.

If only the world could stop spinning.  

 

Dark Prava, Commission by Pigbee (Tumblr)


	4. Trials [Cytharat]

When Vikesh showed up for the next trials, he found the door shut.

 

He hadn't meant to be late – he couldn't have been there on time, not with Harkun who had just omitted to call for him altogether, and now... now the door was closed, and whatever chance Vikesh had of passing was _gone_.

 

In the past few days, the young pureblood had reached the conclusion that his only chance to leave Korriban alive was to convince Darth Malgus to take him. If he wasn't good enough to be his apprentice, perhaps the dark lord would have some use for a servant? Vikesh didn't care, as long as he left. Staying would only allow Harkun to use him as canon fodder, and sooner or later – most likely sooner, one of the other initiates would kill him for fun. He just had to survive long enough to meet the Sith.

 

But the door was closed, standing like a wall between Vikesh and his hopes of survival.

 

He stood there, looking dumbly at the door. By all means, he should go back to his room and... wait? Wait for what? Harkun hadn't bothered calling him for the trial. Did that mean that Vikesh wasn't even an initiate anymore?

 

 _I am not a slave_. He had heard that sometimes, when initiates weren't good enough and didn't die, the Academy just snapped a shock necklace on their neck and sent them to toil. _I am the child of a long line of siths. I'd rather be dead_.

 

 _A long line of average siths_ , a little voice whispered. _The blood must have weakened_...

 

He took in a sharp intake of breath. He could turn back and wait, and then he would truly deserve the degradation. Or he could break Harkun's rules and get inside and convince him and just hope that the Overseer wouldn't kill him on the spot.

 

_I am Sith. I am not weak. Through Power I gain Freedom._

 

He repeated the moto a few times to himself. It was just a _door_. If he injected the right amount of electricity into the pad by the door, he may trick it into opening. He felt his neck dampen with sweat. _Use your fear. Use your anger. Channel them_. He grabbed them, let them in the Force until It twisted, his fingers twitching as they metaphorically tried to grab It and master Its power. Something within him revolted, disgust rising into his throat, until he could beat it down. The sparks erupting from his fingers were neither strong nor long lasting, but Vikesh felt wounded and sick. At least the pad cracked, the door opened and Vikesh stepped in, unwilling to wait for his courage to fail.

 

He stopped as if hit. Inside the room were his usual tormentors: Harkun and the five acolytes, lined up against the wall, facing a tall man with a skin white as snow, tainted with black veins. The artificial sound of his breath echoed in the now silent chamber. His presence hit Vikesh like a bout of sickness, rich and putrid, a mix of fear, disgust and despair. Stunned, the pureblood acolyte stayed put; he had thought to defy Harkun and claim his right to keep fighting, and what was unraveling now was something else entirely.

 

Harkun's face had gone red around his tattoo.

 

“Weakling! What do you think you are doing there?”

 

The Overseer's words had the unplanned benefit of breaking through Vikesh's shock. He acted without thinking and went past the acolytes, falling on one knee under Darth Malgus's smoldering glare.

 

“I came to be yours.”

 

The rattataki acolyte burst out launching; he stopped as soon as Malgus begun to speak.

 

“You demand to be my apprentice?”

 

“I demand nothing, my Lord. I would serve you in any way you seem fit – be it as an apprentice, a servant or slave. I only want to bear witness to your greatness.”

 

“This is outrageous!” Harkun erupted. Vikesh heard his angry strides coming closer, fought down the animalistic urge to flinch. “This thing is unworthy. Any of the others would do better than _that_. It would be a disgrace for the Academy…”

 

“I care little for the Academy.” Malgus voice resonated through his mask, through Vikesh’s bones and the ground and everyone else; the Dark Side flowed freely from him and burnt like harsh sunlight on tender skin. “You,” he designated the chuckler. “If any of the others can best him, then this one will do.”

 

Malgus’s eyes bore into the young pureblood. They were yellow, a sickly hue encircled with bright red and blood.

 

“You will kill him,” he ordered, “barehanded.”

 

The rattataki came on him before Vikesh could properly stand up. He hit with his fists first, landing a shattering blow on his jaw that sent the pureblood back to the ground. The kick that followed was spite rather than technique, but still enough to blow all air from his victim’s chest.

 

_React. Do something._

 

Vikesh sent one leg against the back of the rattataki’s knees. The acolyte stumbled and fell down, but rather than stand up and give Vikesh some time to react, he just launched himself toward him. They grappled and fought until the rattataki took the high ground again, straddling his smaller opponent and going for his throat.

 

The pureblood grabbed the hands, his fingers digging into the wrists, hard enough to bruise though too weak to break the hold. He tried to get hold on his feelings – desperation, fear and pain, to infuse them into the Force, to make it burnt, to have _something_ to fight back. His fingers _cracked_ with energy. He felt the dizziness, the nausea of the Dark Side clenching his guts, the rattataki’s nails digging into his neck the shock contracted his muscles instead of forcing his grasp open.

 

_I am going to die._

 

The sickness was spreading; he was lightheaded… or was that oxygen deprivation?

_No!_

 

He twisted the _sickness_ , holding it, breathing in the stench and the pain until the whole universe seemed to be made of agony and bile, but the surge of power was _here_ , finally; Vikesh directed it wildely, away, anywhere but in his wounded self. He saw with detachment his opponent fly away from him and land square into a rack of sith swords.

 

He only wanted to breathe.

 

He felt his neck, bruised and cut open by the rattataki’s nails when his hold was broken. He felt nausea, so crippling he could barely push himself off the ground; he couldn’t stand, couldn’t summon the Force again, couldn’t do _anything_ but watch his opponent grab one of the sword and march toward him and…

 

The rattataki stopped. He gaped, his eyes widened, his mouth opened and no sound came out. He reached for his throat, let go of his sword.

 

“There is nothing I despise more than a disobedient apprentice,” Malgus rasped.

 

And then the rattataki’s head turned, turned until his neck cracked and his face was looking toward the wrong side of his body, and then his body fell, the broken corps twisting right in front of Vikesh’s eyes.

 

And then he threw up, and passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I usually don't post short chapters, but I have been very busy with work this month and I wanted to post something, so here it is! Things should slow down a bit at work and I will be able to write more in the following weeks, so look forward something more substantial soon.


End file.
